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Balfour: Company growth strategies consist of a limited set menu

Brian Balfour · Brian Balfour: Startup Growth Secrets from HubSpot; Distribution Stratagies; Impact of AI | E1049 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Aug 16, 2023 · at 3:45

Brian Balfour, founder and CEO of Reforge and former VP of Growth at HubSpot, shares insights on growth frameworks observed across thousands of companies.

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“There's not an infinite world of growth options. It's actually it's fairly well defined and constrained, and that's something that I've, like, I've learned pretty dramatically, especially through Reforge, where I get to see inside, you know, the growth of thousands of different companies, including the top public ones all the way down to your early stage ones, and it's not like there's an endless list of ways to grow. There's actually a fairly set menu of things, and you can innovate within that menu, but it's actually pretty rare that a new dish gets added onto the menu.”

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